A contrastive analysis on passive voice in english and vietnamese”

CHAPTER THREE: CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON PASSIVE VOICE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE...34 3.1.. While the concept of voice in general and passive voice in particular is familiar to the English

First and formost, I would like to thank all the teachers of Foreign LanguagesDepartment at Hai Phong University for their support in the whole four years that Ihave studied here

In addition, I am honored to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor,Mrs Nguyen Thi Thuy Giang for her constant support and all-round supervision.Not only knowledge but also encouragement from her made me inspired andmotivated to overcome difficulties Without her, the thesis could not be completed

With no less sincerity, my friends in class English Major B academic year 13brought me a strong motivation to complete the paper

Last but not least, all my heart is delighted to my family, especially myparents because of their emotional and technical supports They are always beside

me and inspire me to try my best

SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i

SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS ii

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Research questions 2

1.3 Aims of the study 2

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Methods of the study 3

1.6 Organization of the study 3

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER ONE: PASSIVE VOICE IN ENGLISH 5

1.1 Definition 5

1.2 Classification 6

1.2.1 Quirk’s view on classification of passive voice 6

1.2.1.1 Agentive passives 6

1.2.1.3 Non-agentive passives/ intensive active complement construction 7

1.2.2 Quirk’s another passive scale 8

1.2.3 Granger’s view 8

1.3 Structures 9

1.3.1 Common passive voice structures 9

1.3.2 Special passive voice structure 10

1.3.2.1 Some special forms with passive meaning 10

1.3.2.1.1 Modal verb in the passive 10

1.3.2.1.2 The passive with “GET” 10

1.3.2.1.3 The passive with verbs of reporting 11

1.3.2.1.4 The passive with verbs of giving 13

1.3.2.1.5 The passive with “HAVE” and “GET” 14

1.3.2.1.6 Prepositions with passive verbs 14

1.3.2.1.7 Pseudo-passives 16

1.3.2.2 Some special structure 16

1.4 Usage 18

1.4.1 Emphasizing the recipient/ the topic 18

1.4.2 Stressing new information 19

1.4.3 Avoiding responsibility 19

1.4.4 Removing an unessential agent 20

1.4.5 Using in typical contexts 20

CHAPTER TWO: PASSIVE VOICE IN VIETNAMESE 21

2.1 Definition 21

2.2 Approaches 21

2.2.1 Morphological approach 22

2.2.1.1 The typical feature of isolating language 22

2.2.1.2 Morphological category 22

2.2.1.3 Concept of “BỊ” and “ĐƯỢC” 23

2.2.2 Syntactic approach 24

2.2.2.1 Syntactic construction 24

2.2.2.2 Grammatical and semantic characteristics 25

2.3 Structure 26

2.3.1 Common structure 26

2.3.2 Types 26

2.3.2.2 “BỊ” or “ĐƯỢC” without objects 26

2.3.2.3 Without “BỊ” or “ĐƯỢC” 27

2.3.2.4 Without the action 27

2.3.3 Special cases 27

2.4 Usage 28

2.5 Factors affecting the choice of using active and passive 28

2.5.1 Extra- linguistic factors 28

2.5.2 Linguistics factors 28

2.6 Expression of passive voice in Vietnamese 29

2.6.1 “BỊ” and “ĐƯỢC” 29

2.6.1.1.Do “BỊ” and “ĐƯỢC”always mark passive voice or passive meaning? .29 2.6.1.2 Do “BỊ” and “ĐƯỢC”ever lose their lexical meaning? 30

2.6.2 Other ways to express passive meaning in Vietnamese 31

3 CHAPTER THREE: CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON PASSIVE VOICE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 34

3.1 Similarities 34

3.1.1 Usage 34

3.1.2.1 Syntactics 35

3.1.2.2 Semantics 35

3.1.2.3 Pragmatics 36

3.2 Differences 36

3.2.1 Passive structure 36

3.2.1.1 Syntactics 36

3.2.1.1.1 The obligatory and compulsory parts in Passive structure 36

3.2.1.1.2 Noun phrase passivization 37

3.2.1.2 Semantics 37

3.2.1.3 Pragmatics 40

3.2.2 Genre distinction 43

3.2.3 Frequency of usage 43

CHAPTER FOUR: IMPLICATION FOR ENGLISH TEACHING AND LEARNING OF PASSIVE VOICE 45

PART THREE: CONCLUSION 47

I Summaries 47

II Limitation and suggestion for further studies 47

REFERENCES 49

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the study

According to Asher R.E (1994:4938), “Linguists use the term voice in anumber of senses” and “the broadest definition of voice encompassing a wide range

of grammatical constructions that are commonly thought to be quite distinct fromthose related by the active- passive alternation” In this view, the term voices ingeneral and passive voice in particular do exist in all languages In Vietnamese, thedebates around the passive voice have lasted for several stages In the early days ofVietnamese research, the concept of passive construction was accepted

The rules applied here, however, were rigidly transformed from Europeanlanguages The inappropriate features of these artificial sentences lead to the refusal

of passive constructions in the next stage of Vietnamese research While the concept

of voice in general and passive voice in particular is familiar to the English, it is anabstract concept to have to deal with the passive constructions

There have been several studies of the passive voice in English and thepassive contrast between English and Vietnamese These researchers, however,neither confirm the existence of the passive in Vietnamese nor point out thedifference in decisive factors to passive usage in two languages

Passive voice is one of the most difficult grammar points that make studentsconfused so much about both its function and its equivalent meaning when theytranslate a passive sentence into an active one in Vietnamese

Or “The two houses are built near one another” and “Hai cái nhà này xây gần nhau”.

From the point of view of English grammar, one might ask: How can a house

be built by itself? There must be someone to build the house But in Vietnamese,they are complete sentences There is no difference in meaning between the twosentences although the word orders between the two are different One reason is thatthe object of the verb can be tropicalized, often resulting in a sentence translatedwith an English passive

In this study, the researcher will discuss the similarities and differences ofpassive sentences in English and Vietnamese The similarities between the twolanguages are that passive voice is used to emphasize the action, not the causes ofthe action However, in English, we tend to use more passive sentences whilepeople prefer to use more active form in Vietnamese To help Vietnamese studentsstudy Passive voice in English more easily, this essay will make a contrastiveanalysis on passive voice in English and Vietnamese

Having better awareness of the importance of English grammar, theresearcher decided to clarify the study of her graduation paper However, due to thelimitation of time and knowledge, the researcher will just spend time concentrating

on the study of “A contrastive analysis on passive voice in English and

Vietnamese” The researcher hope that it will become useful for those who study

English Grammar in general and the passive voice in particular

1.2 Research questions

This paper is aimed at answering these main questions:

 What is passive voice in English and Vietnamese?

 Is there passive voice in Vietnamese?

 What are the similarities and differences between English andVietnamese passive voice?

1.3 Aims of the study

The study “A contrastive analysis on passive voice in English and

Vietnamese” attempts to:

 Introduce passive voice and some views about passive voice in Englishand Vietnamese

 Give the list of their usage

 Present and classify some verb forms and special forms of the passivevoice in English and Vietnamese

 Show the expressions of “bị” and “được” in Vietnamese

 Find out the similarities and differences in construction of the passivevoice in English and its Vietnamese equivalents

 Give some implications for English teaching and learning of the passivevoice

1.4 Scope of the study

This study focuses on the contrastive analysis on passive voice in Englishand Vietnamese (the comparisons) In this thesis, the passive is viewed fromdifferent grammatical aspects based on the definitions, classifications, usage andstructures in both English and Vietnamese will be taken as the basis for thecomparison and contrast

1.5 Methods of the study

The main purpose of this study is to find out the contrastivepassive voice inEnglish and Vietnamese Therefore the researcher uses the documentary methodincluded collecting, analyzing and giving examples to make language learning andteaching more effective Document analysis is used to find out all the passive voicefrom a variety of books and valuable resources such as internet, magazines,previous graduation papers, etc Besides, examples are used to illustrate giveninformation which are extracted from a variety of textbooks and resources

In addition, comparison is indispensable method to point out similarities anddifferences of passive voice in English and in Vietnamese

1.6 Organization of the study

This graduation paper is divided into threeparts: The Introduction, theDevelopment and the Conclusion

The Introduction briefly introduces the thesis included: Rationale, Research

questions, Aims of the study, Scope of the study, Methods of the study, Organization

of the study.

In the Development, it contains four chapters: Chapter one and two will

present all the theoretical background about English and Vietnamese passive voice

Chapter threecontains all the analysis that the researcher obtains after

researchingsome data and document about passive voice In chapter four, she gives

some necessary implicatures for learners in teaching and learning

Part three is the conclusion which summarizes the contents and results in thethesis

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: PASSIVE VOICE IN ENGLISH

1.1 Definition

Passive voice is not a derivative of active voice, which is the outcome ofpeople’s different meaning expression Passive voice describes the whole process ofcertain event from the patient’s point of view It is a marked form of voice There

are three markers in passive voice: Be, -Ed and by which has its meaning and

significance respectively Typical passives could be classified into two categories,passive with agent and passive without agent, or, agentive passive and non-agentivepassive In the agentive passive, the agent will not appear but will be implicit in thecontext

According to Homby (2005), voice, in term of grammar, is the form of a verbthat shows whether the subject of a sentence performs an action (the active voice) or

is affected by it (passive voice)

Stillman (2010) said that voice refers to whether the subject of a sentence is

on the giving or receiving end of the action”

In another project, Farlex (Inc.,2010) also considered that more specifically,passive voice is the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb isthe recipient (not the source) of the action denoted by the verb”

In general, a passive sentence is one that reflects the above-mentionedfeature of passive voice

In this sentence “All the assignments were done by Kelvin”, the recipient

“assignment” is denoted and emphasized by the verb “do”, not the agent “Kelvin”;

therefore, this is a passive sentence

A general rule is to use the passive voice only when the doer or the agent inyour sentence (the person or thing acting) is unknown or is unimportant or whenyou want to connect the topics of the two clauses

Ex: The pandas are rare Two of them will be returned to the wild.

He had a lot people working for him, maybe sixty, and almost of them liked

him most of the time Three of the will be seriously considered for his job.

1.2 Classification

1.2.1 Quirk’s view on classification of passive voice

The passive construction has been classified in many different ways

Summarizing the discussion of the passive scale in the “A grammar of

contemporary English” (1972), Quirk set up the following subcategories.

1.2.1.1 Agentive passives

Agentive passive sentences are where the doer or the agent is explicitlyexpressed by the proposition “by” plus agent. Sentence (1) The butler murdered the

detective and (2) The detective was murdered by the butler have a direct

passive-active relation The difference between the next two is that the former has apersonal, the latter a non-personal agent:

(3) My father made this violin.

(4) The results hardly justify this conclusion.

With expressed agents:

(5) Coal has been replaced by oil This is a passive with two possible active

transforms depending on the interpretation of the by-phrase

(6) Oil has replaced coal.

(7) (People in many countries) have replaced coal by oil.

Sentence (6) is an active transform like (4) with a non-personal agent; (7) isinactive transform where the by-phrase has been given an instrumentalinterpretation (by=with) Consequently an active subject must be supplied

Without expressed agents:

(8) This difficulty can be avoided in several ways.

Sentence (8) exemplified the most common type of passive, which has noexpressed agent, or agentless passives

1.2.1.2 Quasi-passives

Quasi means seemingly or looking almost like That is, a verb is called quasipassive when its use almost looks like passive but actually it is active in syntacticand semantic structure Examples: Rice sells cheap, meaning rice is cheap when it issold Honey tastes sweet, meaning honey is sweet when it is tasted

Their surface structure operates on one level which is apparently passive, buttheir meaning emerges from the deep structure which is actually active in function.

(9) We are encouraged to go on with the project.

(10) John was interested in linguistics.

The passive sentences, (9) and (10) represent a “mixed” class whosemembers have both verbal and adjectival properties They are verbal in havingactive analogues:

(11) (The results) encourage us to go on with the project.

(12) Linguistics interested John.

1.2.1.3 Non-agentive passives/ intensive active complement construction.

The study in complement construction either non-agentive passives orintensive active shows us the sentence without the agent often expressed by theproposition “BY” in the passive voice and the complement in the active voice

(13) The modern world becomes more highly industrialized and mechanized.

Sentence (13) has no active transform or possibility of agent addition, since

no “performer” is conceived of The participles have adjectival values: compare

industrialized-industrial and mechanized-mechanical Besides a number of such

“resulting” verbs ending in –ize (organize, Americanized, etc.), this class includes

“existing” constructions, as in

(14) The house is already sold.

The corresponding active of which are not (15) but (16)

(15) (The agent) already sells the house.

(16) (The agent) has already sold the house.

In this case, voice transformation involves aspectual shift from present topresent perfect

While it is clear that (13) and (14) are not “passive” in the sense ofsentences, they still satisfy the formal passive requirement and, as in the case of(14), often have an “indirect” voice relationship We will therefore call this class

“non-agentive passive/ intensive active complement constructions”, recognizing

that The house is already sold It is related both to agentive passive The house has

already been sold and to the intensive (active) complement construction.

(17) The house is already gone/ no longer available.

1.2.2 Quirk’s another passive scale

Quirk also gives more views on passive voice in English in A grammar of

contemporary English[Quirk, et al, 1972, 266-231] through his passive scale.

Quirk’s passive scaleCentral passive or true passive

With currentcopula verbs,

e.g., be, feel,

look

With resultingcopula verbs,

become, grow

Table 1: Quirk’s passive scale

1.2.3 Granger’s view

Granger (1983, et al, 81-190) has concentrated on “The be+past participle

construction in spoken English”, and classified it into seven categories, namely,

passives, adjectival pseudo-passives, verbal pseudo-passives mixed be+Vedcombinations, usually passive category, peripheral combinations and stativecombinations

Examples from (18) to (24) illustrate them respectively:

(18) That attitude was maintained by the government in the future nine days

of debates in the Lords

(19) Perhaps the tick is rather more complicated

(20) She’s been rather elusive as far as I’m concerned, so I don’t really know her.(21) I am amazed at the price of houses out here

(22) I feel we’re all faced with this problem

(23) I’m fairly closely connected with that work

(24) But I have these two houses that are built on to the next door’s backgarden sort of thing

Granger’s classification is in great detail Actually the latter four categoriesare the borderline cases and they are very much related to, and sometimes can beput into the first category.

1.3 Structures

It can be said that passive voice is one of the most popular grammatical points in English By tense we understand the correspondence between the form of the verb and our concept of time

The passive voice is commonly formed by combining a form of the "to be

verb" with the past participle (P.P) of the main verb BE + P.P We call this type as

“Be passive”.

1.3.1 Common passive voice structures

All these structures below that we often catch them We use a form of be + past participle to form the passive voice This form also can be used in various

tenses

For example:

This house is built (Simple present)

This house is being built at the present (Present continuous)

This house will be built next month (Simple future)

This house was built in 1990 (Simple past)

This house has been built for 20 days (Present perfect)…

Here is the table of verbs in Passive voice in terms of 12 tenses.

PASSIVE VOICE WITH 12 TENSES

Tenses Structures Examples

Simple present am/ is/ are + PP This cake is made by my

continuous made by my mother.

Will + have been being + P.P This cake will have been

being made by my mother.

Table 2: Passive voice verbs in term of 12 tenses

1.3.2 Special passive voice structure

1.3.2.1 Some special forms with passive meaning

In English, besides some special structures, there are some special formsbased on the kinds of verb and structures In each type, they have respectivemeanings Here are some forms with passive meaning that the writer denoted

1.3.2.1.1 Modal verb in the passive

We can use the passive with a modal verb (or an expression like have to).Thomson (1986:263) gave the pattern in his report is:

Modal verb + be+ past participle

E.g.: The doors must/should be shut.

Eastwood (1994:136) also said that a modal verb can also go with the perfectand the passive together H gave the pattern is:

Modal verb + have been + past participle

E.g.: The plane might have been delayed by the fog

1.3.2.1.2 The passive with “GET”

According to Thomson (1986:265),GET is sometimes used instead of bein

colloquial speech:

E.g.: You’ll get (=be) sacked if you take any more time off

We use the passive with GET mainly in informal English, and it has a more

limited use than be The passive with get expresses action and change, not a state It

often refers to something happening by accident, unexpectedly or incidentally

However, we do not use GET as this sentence:

E.g.:Wembly Stadium got built in 1923

To use the verb GETreasonably, Alexander (1988:245) also mentioned

some rules as following:

 We do something to ourselves

E.g.: I got dressed as quickly as I could

 We manage to arrange something in our favor Reflexive pronouns canoften be used in such cases

E.g.: I was not surprised when she got elected after all the efforts she made

 Something often unfavorable happens beyond our control

E.g.: We got delayed because of the holiday traffic

1.3.2.1.3 The passive with verbs of reporting

 In term of reporting verbs in passive voice, firstly we should mark somenoting according to the following example:

Active: They say that elephants have good memories

Passive: It is said that elephants have good memories

Elephants are said to have good memories

 In the second concern, here are four patterns with verbs of reporting:

(1) It + passive verb + finite clause

According to Eastwood (1994:138), this pattern is often used in news reportswhere there is no need to mention the source of the information

E.g.: It is said that there is plenty of oil off our coast

It is feared that many lives have been lost in the train crash

In this pattern we can use these verbs:

Claim Fear Observe Reveal

(2) Subject + passive verb + to-infinitive

Hewings (1999:32) mentioned that an alternative to It + passive verb +

That-clause is to use Subject + passive verb + to-infinitive.

E.g.: It had been thought that the chemicals convey important information tothe brain

=> The chemicals had been thought to convey important information to thebrain

In this pattern, we can use these verbs:

E.g.: Turner was considered to be a genius even in his lifetime

Homeopathic remedies are believed to be very effective

“The infinitive can also be perfect or continuous, or it can be passive.”(Eastwood, 1994:138)

E.g.: The army was reported to be crossing the frontier

The prisoner is known to have behaved violently in the past

Stonehenge is thought to have been built over a period of 500 years

Thomson (1986:268) referred that the suppose in the passive can be followed

by the present infinitive of any verb but this construction usually conveys an idea ofduty and is not therefore the normal equivalent of suppose in the active:

E.g.: You are supposed to know how to drive

(3) It + passive verb + to-infinitive

“We can use this pattern only with the verbs agree, decide andpropose.”(Eastwood, 1994:139)

E.g.: Active: The committee agreed to support the idea

Passive: It was agreed to support the idea

(4) There + passive verb + to be + complement

In this last pattern, Alexander (1988:245) said that it can be used with limited selection of verbs:

E.g.: There is said to be plenty of oil off our coast.

There are known to be thousands of different species of beetles

1.3.2.1.4 The passive with verbs of giving

In the active sentence, Eastwood (1994:137) considered that the word

“GIVE” can have two objects

E.g.: Active: The nurse gives the patient a sleeping pill

Either of these objects can be the subject of passive sentence

Passive: A sleeping pill is given to the patient

The patient is given a sleeping pill

Another example as:

A book was given to him (The direct primary passive)

He was given a book (The indirect secondary passive)

The indirect (secondary) passive is not infrequent in verb phrase with theverb to give, such as: to give credit, to give command, to give an explanation, etc

He was given a good chance to argue

She is given an opportunity to go to the South in summer

There are many verbs in English which take a direct and an indirect object inthe active construction, but they admit only one passive construction – the directpassive

Eastwood (1994:137) also denoted that we can use these verbs in the passive pattern:

1.3.2.1.5 The passive with “HAVE” and “GET”

“HAVE/ GET” also a special form of passive voice that we should focus

on Its form is:

Have/ Get + object + past participle

(This pattern means “cause something to be done”)

“It may describe situations where we want someone else to object somethingfor us.”(Eastwood, 1994:140)

E.g.: I had/got the machine repaired only last week

If the verb refers to something negative or unwanted, it has the samemeaning as a passive sentence:

E.g.: Jim had his car stolen last night

The construction can refer to the completion of an activity, especially if atime expression is used

E.g.: We’ll get the work done as soon as possible.

Both have and get are ordinary verbs which can be continuous and which can

take the auxiliary Get is more formal than have.

E.g.: We’re having/getting a new kitchen fitted

1.3.2.1.6 Prepositions with passive verbs

When a verb + preposition + object combination is put into the passive, the

preposition will remain immediately after the verb:

E.g.: Active: You can play with these cubs quite safely

Passive: These cubs can be played with quite safely

Thomson (1986:267) gave the similarly with verb + preposition/adverb

combinations:

E.g.: Active: They threw away the old newspapers

Passive: The old newspapers were thrown away.

The prepositional passive is not used with verbs which take two objects,

direct and prepositional: to explain something to somebody, to point out, to

announce, to dedicate, to devote, to say, to suggest, to propose, etc They can have only a direct construction.

E.g.: The difficulty was explained to them

The mistake to the rule was pointed out to the man

Rayevska (1976:122) said that the prepositional passive is not very frequent

in occurrence Its use is common with rather limited number of verbs, such as:

 Verbs of saying: to speak about (of, to), to talk about (of), to comment

on, etc

E.g.: The new play was much spoken of

 Verbs expressing scorn or contempt: to frown at, to laugh at, to mock at,

to jeer at, to sneer at, etc.

E.g.: He could not understand why his words were laughed at.

 A miscellaneous group of verbs, such as: to look at, to look upon (on), to

look after, to look for, to approve (disapprove) of, to account for, to send for, to rely

on, etc.

E.g.: Here is Irene to be thought of.

1.3.2.1.7 Pseudo-passives

Pseudo-passive has a copular verb followed by a predicate adjective thatlooks similar or identical to the past participle They refer to states withoutreference to past events that brought about the states In fact, some of theseadjectives were participles in earlier stages of English Rotten is one such adjective,the past participle function is now filled by rotted

“The rope had been rotted by damp salty air”.

But not this:

“The rope had been rotten by the damp salty air”

The 1st sentence with the participle rotted specifies a result as well as thestate of the rope, and a process of rotting caused by the dampness The adjectiverotten, however, refers only to the state that is why it cannot occur with the byphrase

E.g.: The door was opened

The door was open

In the example above, it is easy enough to distinguish between the passivesand sentences with adjectives because the participles are at past participle and theadjective are identical

e.g.: The door was shut by the butler

The door was shut

The factory was closed by the inspectors

The factory was closed

According to Jacob (1995:166), the first sentence of each pair refers to the

actual event of door shutting or factory-closing The second sentence of each pair however is ambiguous If shut and closed are interpreted as adjectives the door and

the factory are just not open But these words could be past participles, in which

case the sentence would refer to the event, the action of closing

1.3.2.2 Some special structure

Based on the special forms, in this particular type, English learners should also pay attention to these nine special cases of the passive voice They are:

 Modal verbs

We use the modal + be + past participle.

Present: I can be misunderstood.

Future: I could be misunderstood.

Past: I could have been misunderstood

 Causative form

Passive voice with causative forms: HAVE, GET

Active: S+ have/ get + O (person) + bare infinitive + O

Passive: S + have/ get + O (thing) + P.P (+by +O [person])

o For example:

I get her to make some coffee.

→ I get some coffee made.

 Verbs of perception: SEE, WATCH, HEAR….

Active: S + V+ O + bare infinitive/ V-ing…

Passive: S + be + P.P + to infinitive/ V-ing…

For example:

They saw her come in.

→ She was seen to come in.

 Verbs of opinion: SAY, THINK, BELIEVE, REPORT, RUMOR…

Active: S + V + (that) + clause (S2 + V2 + O2…)

Passive: S2 + be + P.P + to-infinitive…

+ to have + P.P…

For example:

People say that he is a famous doctor

→ It is said that he is a famous doctor.

→ He is said to be a famous doctor.

They thought that Mary had gone away

→ It was thought that Mary had gone away.

→ Mary was thought to have gone away.

 Imperative sentence.

Active: V + O + Adjunct

Passive: Let + O + be + P.P + Adjunct.

For example:

He let me go out

→ I was let to go.

→ I was allowed to go out.

 Intransitive verbs

Some verbs such as:HAPPEN, OCCUR, and TRY (to) are not used in thepassive voice

For example: The ceremony was happened yesterday.

Morality is an issue that was tried to explain by many philosophers.

 Reduced relative clause

For example: None of the people invited to the party can come

The money stolen in the robbery was never found

 Past infinitive: must have, should have, …

For example: My bicycle must have been stolen

The window should have been cleaned yesterday

 Verb + Object 1 + Object 2

For example: Ann was offered a job

A job is offered to Ann

 Verb + Gerund

For example: I don’t like being told what to do

I remember being given a present on my seventh birthday

 V-ing with passive meaning

For example: The grass need cutting

1.4 Usage

The passive voice is used more often in writing than in speaking However,there are some particular cases in which the passive voice is employed, especiallywhen:

1.4.1 Emphasizing the recipient/ the topic

Let’s consider the following examples:

 Thomson discovered the electron

 The electron was discovered by Thomson

According to Eastwood (1994:132), it can be easy to know that the twosentences above have the same meaning, but they have different topic: they areabout different things The topic of the first sentence is “Thomson”, and the topic ofthe second is “the electron” In active voice, the focus of interest is on the agent orthe doer/performer of the action (Thomson), but in passive voice the focus ofinterest is on the action or the receiver of the action (the electron)

In fact, only about 20% of passive sentences mention the agent (Richard &Guy, 1999, p 34) In fact in many cases the performer of the action is not important,not known or it is so obvious, widely known in that it is so popular For instance,

English is spoken all over the world, in this sentence; it goes without saying that the

agents are the people from around the world Another instance is he was killed in

his room, the doer of the action kill in this sentence not stated because no one knows

who the killer is

1.4.2 Stressing new information

A sentence contains a topic and also new information about the topic The newinformation usually come at or near the end of the sentence and is the point of interest

E.g.: I was surprised by the news

The speaker wants to stress the information provided in the sentence.Moreover, we use passive in order not to start with too long phases as subjects in

sentences so that the naturalness of the sentences are lucidly expressed Take We

were surprised by the number of people trying to leave the city for the long weekend as an example The naturalness of this sentence is undoubtedly better than The number of people trying to leave the city for the long weekend surprises us.

In passive sentence the point of interest can be other information such astime, place, manner or instrument

E.g.: The gas should be lit with a match

1.4.3 Avoiding responsibility

When we want to avoid responsibility: when the active voice seems

indiscreet, we can use passive voice to avoid assigning responsibility for the action

For example: You made this machine out of order

This machine was made out of order

1.4.4 Removing an unessential agent

When we do not know who the performer of the action is, the performer will

be dropped from the sentence

E.g.: Her car has been stolen (by someone)

(We do not know who stole her car)

In a passive sentence we mention the agent only if it is importantinformation There is often no need to mention it

E.g.: Nine million cigarettes are smoked

There is no need to say that nine million cigarettes are smoked by smokersall over the world So we do not need use “by + agent” Sometimes we don’t know,

or don’t know exactly, or have forgotten who did the action

E.g.: The minister was murdered.

In spoken English we often use a subject such as people, somebody, they, we

or you even we do not know who the agent is In formal English, particularlywriting, we often prefer to use a passive

E.g.: The new computer system is being installed next month.

1.4.5 Using in typical contexts

We can use the passive in speech, but it is more common in writing,especially in impersonal style of textbook and reports

 Formal notices and announcements

E.g.: Candidates are required to present themselves fifteen minutes before the examination begins They are asked to be punctual Passengers are requested

to remain seated until the aircraft come to a complete stop

 Press report

E.g.: The search for the bank robbers continues Meanwhile, many people

have been questioned and the owner of the stolen getaway car has been traced

 Headlines, advertisements, notices, act

E.g.: KENEDY ASSASSINATED! TRADE AGREEMENTS BROKEN! PRICES SLASHED! ALL GOODS REDUCED! PETROL COUPONS ACCEPTED

 Scientific writing (to describe process)

E.g.: The mixture is placed in a crucible and is heated to a temperature of 3000C It is then allowed to cool before it can analyze

a sentence is active or passive We also cannot base on grammar structure becausethere are some cases in which the structure of an active sentence cannot berecognized

According to Palmer (1994), passive constructions do not exist, and passivemeanings are expressed through verbs of experiencing and becoming, as well assubject or topic markers However, Nguyen (1987) pointed out that the passivevoice in Vietnamese can be also expressed by means of clause subordination thatdepend on whether the action of the clause has adversative outcomes to the clausesubject or topic

Phi Nguyen Khac in Literature 7 of Ministry of education and training said

that passive voice in Vietnamese is the sentence having a subject indicating aperson, an object or more which are impacted by other people or objects (indicating

to the object of activity)

In contrast to the active voice, the passive voice is used in writing reflexivelythan in normal speech, and is used to write in texts than the others Passive voice isappeared in almost the press (magazines) rather than in the other kinds of story suchas: Novels, short stories, etc However, most of journalists and novel writers oftenuse these statements frequently and flexibly However, there are some kinds ofpassive sentence to be used in scientific and technical writings The articles aboutscientific information typically contain more passive voice than others

2.2. Approaches

The issues of passive voice in Vietnamese have always been the mostcontroversial among Vietnamese linguists Their different approaches toVietnamese passive sentences could be put into two groups - the morphological

approach and the syntactic one: The former denies while the later acknowledges theexistence of passive sentences in Vietnamese

2.2.1 Morphological approach

2.2.1.1 The typical feature of isolating language

Some researchers like Tran Trong Kim (1936), M.B Emeneau (1951) and L.Cadière (1958) claim that Vietnamese is an isolating language whose verbs do nothave passive voice; therefore it does not have passive sentences as do inflectinglanguages such as: Russian, French To transform an active sentence to the passivesentence, the verb in inflecting languages has to change its form from active voice

to passive voice The verbs in Vietnamese do not change their forms so they do notsatisfy these strict morphological criteria of passive voice as a grammaticalcategory

Not intending to contrast active voice and passive voice in Vietnamese, L.C

Thompson (1965: 217) also considers that the constructions with “BỊ” or

“ĐƯỢC”are just the translation equivalents of passive constructions in

Indo-European languages He calls these logical passive expressions and does notconsider them as real passive constructions

2.2.1.2 Morphological category

Beside the absence of passive voice as a morphological category, someresearchers base on the fact that Vietnamese is a topic-prominent rather thansubject-prominent language to deny the existence of passive sentences inVietnamese They argue that in topic-prominent languages there must not

be passive constructions because passive constructions are typical of prominent languages which have passive voice

subject-This argument could be traced back to Ch.N Li & S.A Thompson’stypological classification between two types of “topic-prominent languages” and

“subject-prominent languages” (1976) These authors claim that passiveconstructions are very common in subject-prominent languages but usually absent

or rarely present in prominent languages And if they do occur in prominent languages, they usually carry a special meaning, like the adversitypassive in Japanese